


The Loveliest of Them All Was the Unicorn

by grey2510



Series: Misc SPN Works (<15k words) [61]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Background Dean/Cas, Blink and you'll miss it, Canon Universe, Gen, Unicorns, but not the nice ones, vaguely post s12 and all of jack's rifts that he made
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 08:55:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20703287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey2510/pseuds/grey2510
Summary: Sam and Dean go on a hunt to find the creature that's been goring people in a small town.





	The Loveliest of Them All Was the Unicorn

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to Shel Silverstein for the title.

"Unicorns?" Dean scoffed, scrolling through the news site Sam had pulled up on his laptop. It was one of the fringier fringe news sites, but every now and then they hit on a legit case. "Those aren't real. Well, I mean, there was the one, but that was that kiddie-drawings-come-to-life thing."

"There was Sparkle the zanna," Sam pointed out.

"No, Sparkle was a _manicorn_, not a unicorn." Dean frowned, pausing his scrolling, remembering the sparkly bloody mess. "RIP, you glittery sonofabitch. Shine on." 

Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Point is, there's something that's got this whole town up in arms thinking a unicorn is running around goring people."

Dean sighed and pushed the laptop back across the table. "Well, we've gone on hunts for less and my weekend's wide open. C'mon, let's go to Candy Mountain." He shook his head. "Unicorns. Heh. Still don't think this is gonna be anything real, though." 

"Shun the nonbeliever. Shunnn."

"Shaddup."

  


Well, the news site was right: it was a unicorn. Except it was a unicorn that came from the Bad Place through one of the rifts Jack's birth created, which meant that it wasn't some cutesy pony with a sparkly horn that shot rainbows out its butt. Oh no, this was a fucking oversized clydesdale from hell with a horn about three feet long and _barbed_. Ribbed for your pleasure it was _not_. The fact that only two people had died in the town was probably some sort of miracle, but Dean wasn't sure who (if anyone) was giving out those get out of jail free cards these days.

"What. The. Hell." Dean grunted as he unleashed a flamethrower at the thing after unloading both their guns and throwing an angel blade at it. 

The blade was sticking out of its side and faint shimmery blood dripped from the wound, but the unicorn had reacted to the blade and bullets like they were mosquito bites. And the flamethrower? Just pissed the thing off. Its eyes flashed red and it roared—because 'neighed' was nowhere near the unearthly sound that erupted from its throat—and pawed the ground, ready to charge.

"Dean! Cover me!" Sam shouted, falling back out of Dean's line of sight.

"With _what?_" He shot more flames at the thing, not having anything else to do. He was pretty sure standing his ground or running had an equal shot of getting him killed. Goddammit, he did not survive Hell and the Apocalypse and all the other bullshit of his life to get mauled by a fucking _unicorn_.

"DEAN! DUCK!"

Dean dropped to the ground, thankful the flamethrower's trigger needed constant pressure to work so he didn't end up barbequing himself by accident. There was a deafening shot from Dean's left, and a grenade hit the unicorn and exploded.

The unicorn was still standing, but the force of the grenade pushed it back towards the glowing yellow rift. Sam fired again and again. Dean's ears were ringing and he buried his face in the ground to avoid getting hit by shrapnel. There was a moment of quiet and he looked up. The unicorn was gone and the glowing rift blinked feebly, as if getting bombarded with the unicorn and the grenades' power had weakened it.

Dean got up and approached the rift, Sam joining him with the grenade launcher still aimed at the glowing yellow line. He didn't even have it in him to be jealous that Sam had gotten to use the grenade launcher (though nearly blowing his leg off in the Bunker that one time had taken some of the shine off); he was just relieved not to see the ugly horned bastard.

"Think it'll make it back through?" Dean asked, eyeing the rift warily. 

As if in response, they could just make out another of those horrible roars from across the dimensional divide. It was muted, but not enough for Dean's liking.

"Dunno." Sam adjusted his grip on the grenade launcher. "Jack's a two day drive away at least and I don't know where Rowena is. We can't close it on our own and I don't want to wait that long."

"Me neither." Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. "Shit. You think there's any way we can contain it? Like, it ain't a demon, but something like a Devil's Trap around the rift?"

Sam considered. "Not a bad idea. Here." He handed the grenade launcher over to Dean and pulled out his phone. While Dean kept watch on the rift, Sam did some of the fastest research Dean'd ever seen his brother do.

"Told you digitizing everything would come in handy," Sam muttered as he scrolled.

"Look, all I'm saying is when I said I liked librarians, my brother was _not_ what I had in mind."

"Well, that's a relief," Sam said dryly. "You tell Cas about your librarian fetish?"

"It's not a _fetish_ and it's not my fault the dude looks good in glasses—"

"I thought it was cowboy hats?"

"Whatever. You just don't appreciate the finer things in life, Sammy. Now do you have a spell or something yet?"

"Gimme a sec."

Dean rolled his shoulders. The grenade launcher was heavy and awkward to hold and he was pretty sure he was going to end up with a few bruises from when he'd hit the deck earlier. Being over forty sucked. "It's been at least twelve thousand seconds by now…"

"Oh, I'm sorry, did _you_ want to do the research?"

"...No."

"Didn't think so." 

A few more taps and Sam nodded to himself, then jogged back to the Impala. He returned a minute later with an armful of supplies, which he dumped at Dean's feet, before heading into the woods nearby.

"Need some plants!" he called over his shoulder.

"Now's not the time for a salad, Sam!"

Sam ignored him, which Dean had expected. Sam hadn't been gone more than a minute when the rift flared like something was trying to come back through.

"Oh no you don't, you sonofabitch." He fired the grenade launcher; the grenade disappeared through the rift with a flash and a second later, Dean could just make out the sound of the explosion.

Sam returned with a few handfuls of leaves and got to work setting up the barrier spell, laying stones and drawing in the dirt to sketch out the sigil. He mashed together the leaves with some other shit Dean didn't pay too close attention to in the mortar, lit it all on fire while mumbling some mumbo jumbo, and the sigil in the ground flared blueish green around the rift. It faded after a few seconds, but the air around the rift had a shimmery quality to it.

"It won't last forever," Sam said, "but hopefully long enough to get Jack or Rowena here to seal it up for good." 

Dean nodded, finally lowering the launcher. "Well, call 'em up and get them up here." He wandered over to a likely looking rock and parked his butt on it, resting the grenade launcher in his lap. "I'll take first watch. Let's hope it doesn't rain and wash out the sign."

Sam looked stricken, like he hadn't considered that possibility. He eyed the sky, clearly distrusting the cloudless blue expanse. "Yeah, let's hope."

He walked a little ways off to make some phone calls while Dean stretched out his legs in front of him, shifting to get comfortable on the rock. 

Unicorns. Goddamn _unicorns_. He supposed it was no weirder than any of the other shit they'd seen, but still. What a day. He gave the grenade launcher a pat. Well, if that motherfucker came through the rift again, he'd be more than happy to send its ass over the rainbow again, no problemo.   


**Author's Note:**

> Written for Coldest Hits:  
[Here was the prompt and rules](https://spncoldesthits.tumblr.com/post/187733454145/spncoldesthits-september-2019-prompt-unicorn). 
> 
> I was vaguely inspired by the Dresden Files for this, so credit to Jim Butcher for his take on unicorns.
> 
> My other works (sorted by series for easier navigation):  
[Grey's works](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grey2510/series)  
Come visit me on Tumblr! @[grey2510](https://grey2510.tumblr.com/)


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